UNIVERSITY OF NOVA GORICA GRADUATE SCHOOL ...

construct specific to narrativity can also be formed in response to stimuli not expressly
designed for this purpose, for instance as an interpretation of life itself. This does not make
life into ‗a‘ narrative, but it means that life may possess narrative potential – what we may
call ‗narrativity.‘ 90
With a view to the realm of digital multimodal narratives it should be emphasised that
narrativisation here is understood as any activity, as indicated in the quote above, which utilises
the potentiality of online space (interactivity, temporality, spatiality), digital technology and
combination of video, audio, image and text, and combines them to ―bring meaning to mind.‖ 91
Now, it has to be said that digital storytelling and online narrativity in general feature some traits
that establish a line of distinction between oral and digital narrativity: mixing text with other
materials (convergence); limiting the length of narrative, standardisation pressures and the
unpredictability of (un/intended) consequences.
Representation and Mediality
As narrative is generally defined as being constituted by a representation of an event, it is in order
to define the use of representation as well. Elusive as the concept may seem, Stuart Hall in his
lecture on ―Representation and the Media‖ gives a comprehensive view on representation by
contrasting two views: one which sees representation as a presentation of an image/event that is
already there, and as standing in for and/or taking place of political/social leaders. In this view
representation is the way in which meaning is conferred to what is being depicted, which puts
great emphasis on the difference between the ‗true meaning‘ of an event, and how it is represented
in the media. 92
On the other hand, the conceptualisation of representation proposed by Hall construes
representation as constitutive, meaning that events in the world do not have an essential, fixed or
true meaning against which distortion can be measured, but that the meaning of events taking
place depends upon how they are represented. This implies that whoever controls the means of
representation determines the meaning, and the event has no ‗meaning‘ until it is represented,
which makes representation a constitutive of the event. This, however, is not really the case in
DME and co-creative practices, where the meaning is constantly negotiated, if need be perverted,
as a consequence of mediality of 4MOs. Furthermore, Hall stresses that reality does not exist
90 Marie-Laure Ryan, ―Multivariant Narratives.‖
91 Ibid.
92 Stuart Hall, ―Representation and the Media,‖ video lecture, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTzMsPqssOY,
accessed 8 August 2011.
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